Human Rights and Prisons - Rethinking Crime and Punishment

up to five minutes per week (s77(3)). In addition, they may send and receive
as much mail as they wish, subject to some restrictions (s76).
Access to Legal Advisors, Statutory and Specified Others
Law and policy framework
The minimum entitlements include:
Access to statutory visitors and specified visitors – which include
Inspectors, Ombudsmen, Visiting Justices, consular representatives,
Members of Parliament and members of the Human Rights
Commission.
Access to legal advisors. Legal advisors may visit at any time; if a
proposed time is unsuitable, the prison manager must nominate a
reasonable, alternative time. All interviews must be out of hearing of
others and (with prison manager‟s agreement) out of sight of others.
The minimum entitlement of one weekly outgoing phone call does not include
calls to an official agency or legal advisor. Sections 111-122 of the Act
specifies that calls to official agencies, legal advisors and MPs may not be
monitored. Similarly, mail that is to/from an official agency, MP or legal
advisor may not be opened, read or withheld (s103A-110C).
Issues
The Ombudsmen‟s 2005 investigation found no systemic problems with
regard to the visiting of prisoners by legal advisors. However, some issues
that have been raised in recent years include:
Difficulties with telephone contact – both in relation to lawyers being
able to speak with clients in prison, and prisoners being able to reach
their lawyers during the limited times that they have telephone access
(Bott, 2007; Paulin et al, 2008).
Access to legal advice for prisoners with mental illnesses – the UN
Committee against Torture (2009:4) has expressed concern at „the
inadequate provision of…legal services to mentally ill inmates in
prisons‟.
Access to legal advice in relation to civil matters – the Ombudsmen‟s
Office (2005) have noted that prisoners‟ legal concerns go beyond the
reasons for their incarceration, and stressed the importance of access
to voluntary lawyer schemes in ensuring that prisoners are not deprived
of the civil rights generally available in the community.
Slow progress in implementing improvements to lawyers‟ access to
clients – the Auckland District Law Society (2008) has worked with
prison management to address issues regarding access to clients, but
reported that limited resources (primarily staff shortages) were
hindering progress.
Procedures for verifying lawyers‟ identity and credentials – doubts over
people visiting or telephoning prisoners posing as lawyers have
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